“Who else was in there?” asked Gabriel.
“According to Sophie Maxwell and Ella Burns, they were some of Alice’s friends from London. The kind of friends with a lot of money.”
“I don’t suppose you know their names.”
“They’re in the case file.”
Alice remained in the private room for twenty minutes. She left Pancha at 3:22a.m., accompanied by her three friends from Cambridge. Gabriel didn’t bother to photograph the spaced-out kids who followed them out the door.
“Seen enough?” asked the inspector.
“Actually I haven’t seen a thing.”
“How about some coffee? I know just the place.”
It was the little café on the Vara de Rey where Alice had stopped on the day of her disappearance. There was no video to review—it wasn’t that sort of place—and the waitress on duty hadn’t been working on the morning of Alice’s visit. Thecafé solo, however, was perfect. Gabriel drank his first cup and immediately ordered a second.
“Is there nowhere else she went while she was on the island?”
“She left the villa for a few hours the morning after she had the argument with her friend Phoebe. Said she was going to do a bit of sightseeing.”
“Does Alice Winter strike you as the sort of woman who enjoys seeing the sights?”
“Not really.”
Gabriel drew his phone and checked Alice’s Instagram account. She had posted twice that day. One was a photograph of three friends enjoying dinner at La Plaza restaurant. Ten hours earlier, at 12:17p.m., she had posted a photo of a towering rock formation off the Ibizan coast.
“Es Vedrà,” explained Inspector Aragón. “Home of sirens and sea nymphs, if you believe the legends.”
“Do you know where Alice was standing when she took it?”
“Sure, Señor Allon. I think I might.”
12
Cala d’Hort
The popular swimming cove known as Cala d’Hort lay on the western side of the island, a drive of thirty minutes from Ibiza Town. Inspector Aragón slid the Citroën into an empty space in the car park, then, after removing her shoes, set off across the beach. Gabriel followed after her in his sport jacket and suede footwear, much to the bemusement of two young women stretched seminude upon the sand. At the water’s edge he drew his phone and snapped a photograph of the jagged rock formation rising like a weathered gravestone from the flat waters of the Balearic Sea. Then he compared it to the photo taken by Alice Winter two days before her disappearance.
“It’s exactly the same,” said the inspector. “It was definitely taken from this beach.”
“It wasn’t, actually.” Gabriel pointed toward the restaurant at the far end of the cove. “It was taken right over there.”
It was nearly six o’clock, the lull between lunch and dinner, and only two tables were occupied. The barman was thirty or so, with a shaved head, pierced ears, and tattooed arms.
Gabriel handed the man his phone. “Do you recognize her? She was here about a week and a half ago.”
The barman gave the photo a cursory glance. “Sorry, my friend.”
Inspector Aragón laid her credentials on the bar. “How about now?”
“On second thought,” said the barman, “she looks familiar.”
“She’s British,” replied the inspector. “She would have been driving a flashy Mercedes convertible.”
“Was she alone?”
“You tell me.”
